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by slurryer 2677 days ago
I wonder how many missed maneuvers like this can be missed before the thing runs out of fuel and tumbles back to earth. Awesome use of retro techniques though.
1 comments

When an orbiting spacecraft runs out of fuel, it keeps staying in orbit. It does not "tumble back to earth" unless it is close enough that the atmosphere is thick enough to slow it down further.

In this case, perigee is 668 km from the earth, which is in low-earth orbit, but it's apogee is 69020 km away, or high earth orbit - https://heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=44049&lat=0&lng=0... .

Hubble is about 500 km elevation, and it's expected to take about 30 years for its orbit to decay, from the last time it was reboosted. For Beresheet it would be much longer.